UT Evangelion
by Toasterman
Summary: After a horrible accident during a semi-final match, Shinji Ikari gives up fighting in the Tournament. However, he can't hide his past forever and soon finds himself once again picking up a weapon to amuse the masses.
1. Prologue

UT Evangelion

**UT Evangelion**

**Prologue: First Blood**

ANGELS OF DARKNESS VS FREAKS OF NATURE, TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL CTF MATCH 1

Shinji Ikari, 22 years old and reigning champion of the Liandri Tournament, jumped backwards off of a metal bridge running between two towers over 50,000 feet above ground and fired his shock rifle in the process. The proton beam slashed through the frigid winter air and into the enemy contestant's head, blowing it off. Just as Shinji's booted feet landed on a narrower secondary bridge, the match's announcer took note of the killing and shared it with the viewing audience, in typical grandiose style.

"HEADSHOT!"

Above, the headless body shimmered green on its course to meeting the floor and disappeared, an effect of the Liandri Teleportation Respawn Device. In roughly five seconds that competitor would be back in the game, fresh with his head once again intact and with any luck a bigger temper issue than before. Not that Shinji really cared. An increase in anger would cloud his opponent's vision and make him easier to kill. With that in mind, he headed out along this smaller secondary bridge at a dead run. Along the way he ran through a glowing ammo hologram, resulting in more ammo being teleported into the shock rifle in his hands.

A lighting strike glanced off of the metal in front of him and discharged across his armor's chest plate. It stung, but not enough to stop his charge. Looking up while running, he spotted one of the opposing team's players camping atop a pillar with a lighting gun. Just as he looked, the sniper's head was blown off by another lightning bolt, sending his body off of the pillar and toward the ground far below until it was phased out by the body's LTRD. Following the trajectory, Shinji spotted two more of his teammates, Asuka Soryu and Kawrou Nagisa, running across the main bridge. Kawrou held the lightning gun responsible for the de-sniping in his blue gloves as he ran and it would be no surprise to Shinji if in the replays Kawrou had done that as a hip-shot.

"Saved your ass," Kawrou said over the radio link.

"Just get to the flag," Shinji replied.

With that he jumped over a low barrier and landed in the lower entrance to the enemy team's tower. Not slowing down, he rounded a corner and was confronted by a red armored combatant holding the bulky yellow form of a flak cannon. The combatant squeezed off a shot just as Shinji dived to the side out of harms way. The cannon's fragmented payload bounced off the angled wall behind Shinji and up into the passageway's ceiling. Now on his shoulder, Shinji fired a series of two shots from his shock rifle into his opponent's side. Stumbling back from the injuries, the flak cannon wielding human twisted around to aim once again at his target, his finger reaching for the alternate fire trigger.

Shinji pushed with his foot against the wall nearest him and slid across the floor. The flak cannon discharged and forced a large shell into the piece of floor Shinji had occupied a second before, blowing up and sending fragments in every direction. By this time, Shinji had stood up and gotten his shock rifle in line with his target's chest. He fired four quick shots that sizzled through his enemy's armor, into his body and out the other side, electing a scream out of the dying man. He was still crying out as he phased out of existence.

Shinji turned and resumed running through the hallways of the tower up to the flag room. He bounded into the room and immediately took in his surroundings. Just like the room's opposite on the other side of the canyon gap, the flag room was open and lacked any discernable cover. It also had four entrances, three of which were doors situated on the left and right sides with another at the rear of the room. The fourth entrance was a large gaping opening at the front of the room that overlooked the main bridge of the arena. This was typically used as an escape route for teams once they attained possession of the enemy flag.

Currently, Asuka and Kawrou were standing in the middle with their weapons, pouring fire into the hallways beyond the doorways to the right and rear. Asuka carried a tri-barreled rocket launcher and wielded it with deadly precision, or what precision could be attained with a weapon that relied heavily upon splash damage to kill its target. A red team member rushed Asuka, but bottled up in the narrow corridor made him ripe pickings for her explosive fury. Three rockets and one massive combined explosion later the corridor in question was covered with a bit more blood than before.

Kawrou jogged left to avoid a rocket and fired at its launcher with his lightning gun. The jagged beam of electric energy hit his target in the chest. The force of the blast drove the body back along the wall and at another member of the red team. The other member ducked reflexively in anticipation of the heavily armored dead body smashing into him at high speed. Just before impact, however, the respawning device kicked in and the body was reduced to some residual green lights that passed right over the ducking teammate. In seeming shock, the teammate looked up in surprise that the body hadn't hit him only to be rewarded with a shot in the head from Kawrou's lightning gun.

Shinji darted across the floor and touched the flag, which due to its holographic make up transferred automatically from its mounting on the pad located on the floor to his back where it would stay unless he removed it or he was killed. Using the barrel of his shock rifle as a help, Shinji hopped up and headed for the opening leading toward the main bridge. He passed Kawrou and then Asuka, continuing to run and jumped for the bridge. Behind him he could hear both rockets and lightning bolts being used to hold back the other team and buy him time to bring the flag home.

His boots clanged on the ground and he pumped his legs as hard as he could. Eventually he crossed the bridge without any opposition, which he found strange considering it was a semi-final match. Running up the tower, he burst into the blue team flag room to find Rei Ayanami still crouched in the center of the room, sighting across the bridge through her sniper rifle's scope. Shinji jumped onto the flag pad, heard the deep voiced announcer say 'FLAG CAPTURED' and turned to go again for the final capture when he noticed no gunfire coming from the other tower.

"Rei, what's wrong?" Shinji asked, stepping up next to the blue-haired sniper.

She simply stood up and handed Shinji her sniper rifle with a grim look on worn on her face. Confused, Shinji grasped the weapon and put it to his shoulder. He looked through the scope and zoomed in on the other tower. He saw Asuka kneeling beside Kawrou, who was on the ground with his chest torn open from a ripjack disc.

"Come on man," Shinji muttered, "Quit kidding around. Respawn man. Kawrou?"

Asuka's armored shoulders hunched as she bent over and buried her face in her friend's neck, crying. Blood continued to ease from Kawrou's dead body, but he remained there with no indication of respawning any time soon. Numbly, the sniper rifle fell from Shinji's hands and clattered to the floor, the sound ringing hollow in his ears.


	2. Chapter 1

UT Evangelion

**UT Evangelion**

**Chapter 1: Spiteful Unrest**

Shinji rolled over in his cot and glared at the alarm clock on his bedside table as if it had personally insulted him. It was a way that had he still been in the Tournament he would have used before a match on the opposing team's captain, not so much to intimidate the other warrior but to put on a good show for the cameras and all the people watching across the galaxy. That had been a big thing for him eight years ago: appearance. Back then he wouldn't dare coming out into public without a black suit, intimidating sunglasses and pair of pants stocked with pens to deal with the inevitable onslaught of clamoring fans and their unending need for autographs.

These days, he didn't even bother to shave, much less dress classy. The dirty moss green sleeveless shirt he wore to bed and now intended to wear all day under his battered dark blue jacket evidenced this sloppiness. Not that he would be going out in public today or for the next week for that matter. After Kawrou's death (labeled 'an unfortunate malfunction of his armor's respawning device' by Tournament officials) Shinji had realized just how grotesque and wrong the killing of a human really was. During the rematch of that fateful game, Shinji wasn't able to fire on his opponent in the face of the recent trauma and received a shot to the forehead as consequence. Upon respawning, he couldn't stop shaking and suffered a post-traumatic seizure.

As soon as he was released from the treatment center a day later, Shinji resigned from the Tournament and used the money he had built up from his team's championship win the season before to purchase a run down cargo ship. To this day he could still remember Asuka's reaction when he told her he was done…

--

"What the hell do you mean you're through?" Asuka fumed.

After just losing the final match of the season due to a distinct lack of the team's captain, Asuka was decidedly less than thrilled to be hearing the man who had started Angels of Darkness informing her that he was done fighting in the Tournament. What pissed her off the most was how the post match interviews toward her and Rei hadn't been about why they had lost, but rather what was wrong with Shinji. Due to the fact that Rei never said much anyway, Asuka had taken all the questions on herself and had gone so far as to threaten one reporter who had suggested that Shinji could be quitting the Tournament. Now Shinji himself was telling her it was true.

There he stood, before her in the locker room in his trademark black suit and tinted sunglasses that he had worn comfortably out on many dates with her. Now, however, it seemed as though he would be comfortable in anything but these familiar articles.

"I'm through Asuka," he repeated, "I just think that I should be doing other things."

The little shrug that had accompanied his excuse only served to add fuel to the fire of her anger.

"Bullshit! You're running away from the truth! You think I didn't feel sad when Kawrou died? Huh?" she asked.

At this Shinji lowered his head and looked at his shoes. For all of his power and commanding personality, Asuka could still reduce him to the height of a few centimeters with the shouting of a handful of words. Fighting alongside her while at the same time dating for four whole years had its effect on the levels that they understood each other, even without words expressed during the more…erotic moments of their relationship.

"I know you felt sad, Asuka. But he was my best friend, you know?" Shinji said sheepishly, trying to make her understand.

"And I was standing right next to him when he died!" Asuka countered.

"That's not the same thing!" Shinji shouted, "We grew up together, traded cards, rode our boards and double dated in school. I'd known him my entire life. The physical distance between us when he died has nothing at all to do with it. Besides, it showed me that what we do is sick."

"Sick?" Asuka asked, "Sick? You leaving because of one accident is what's sick, Shinji Ikari!"

"He was my best friend," Shinji repeated.

"And I'm your girlfriend! Doesn't that matter?"

Shinji stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Yes, yes it does matter. Just because I'm done doing this job doesn't change the fact that we love each other."

Asuka looked away from him and let her gaze drop to the floor. At the sudden realization of what that meant, Shinji's grip on her shoulders slackened considerably.

"I'm sorry Shinji, but for me it changes a lot more than just that," she muttered, her eyes not visible below her red bangs.

Shinji let go of her and stepped back. Slowly, she turned and opened her locker, creating an intentional barrier between the two people. After a moment's hesitation, Shinji left the locker room and didn't turn back.

--

After recalling the incident in his mind, Shinji shuddered a bit in a mixture of embarrassment, loss and regret for the pain he had caused Asuka. In immediate following to those emotions was the feeling that what he had done back then was not only in the past but also in the right. Standing up out of his bed, Shinji pulled his blue jacket on and slid into his shoes, which automatically tightened around his feet and fit snuggly in place. He walked out of his quarters into the hallway of the cargo ship he had run and called home for the past eight years: _Spiteful Unrest_.

The ship's name hadn't come about as any kind of meaningful poetic thought so much as the pressing need of a name for the ship after he saved it from the scrap yard with the aid of quite a chunk of change. When confronted with the naming form, he had scribbled down the two words in a hurry and left, eager to get away from the world he had called home since birth. Throughout all those years of running cargo between colonies, Shinji had never once stored anything illegal. The way he figured it, he needed neither the trouble nor the money from it.

What he had needed after this many years, though, was help. Two months ago he had hired on an eighteen-year-old kid out of the mining planet Kurudash named Storm Thorton. He was a nice enough kid and could perform the mundane tasks necessary to keep the crusty old vessel working as well as possible. The only qualm Shinji had about hiring him on was the kid's need to ask questions about his past every once in a while. It wasn't that the questions were above anything more than 'what's your favorite weapon?' but they still got Shinji thinking about those times when he was captain of something besides a cargo ship.

Upon entering the bridge of the ship, Shinji found Storm sitting with his feet up on one of the two consoles, hands clasped behind his head and watching the vid screen mounted above the main window. On it was this year's current Tournament, a capture the flag match to be exact. When Storm heard the door slide shut he reached for the remote control to turn it off.

"No," Shinji said flatly, "It's fine."

Storm looked at Shinji over his shoulder for a second before leaning back into his chair like he had been before.

"Thanks Captain," he said.

Shinji grunted in reply and sat down at his own console. Unlike Storm's, which was adorned with pictures of his parents and multiple girlfriends, Shinji's console had no such customized items. Due to his family's close ties with the Tournament, not even pictures of his parents existed here, or in his cabin for that matter. Anything related to his previous life had been left behind when he walked out on his team eight years ago. Today he began with running a remote system's check of everything on the ship from fresh water and oxygen levels to the status of the engine's reactor, not paying any attention to what Storm was watching.

_"Wow, what a great match. That certainly was interesting, wasn't it Malcolm?" _asked the emotionless voice of a robotic post-game anchor on the vid screen.

Shinji heard it, and knowing Malcolm personally from way back when, was prepared for the deep rumbling voice that was sure to follow the robot's question.

_"Yeah you're right, sure was exciting. But that's to be expected from those two teams. Being so new to the Tournament causes them to fight like animals," _Malcolm replied.

"Good old Malcolm," Shinji muttered to himself while watching the system's check run its course.

"You say something, Captain?" Storm asked.

"Nah," Shinji replied, "Just thinking out loud."

_"Well next up is a Team Deathmatch exhibition between the Heavy Hitters, a team made up entirely of Juggernauts, and last year's champions, Angels of Darkness,"_ said the robot anchor.

Shinji spun around in his swivel chair expecting to see Malcolm and the robot but instead saw a series of clips showing the new Angels of Darkness 2.0. As the images played, Malcolm gave commentary on the team and who was on it.

_"Aside from their team captain Asuka Soryu's tabloid escapades with teammate Toji Suzahara getting enough spotlight for the entire team, there are still other things going on with Angels."_

_"Like what, Malcolm?"_

_"Like the new line up. I've talked with Asuka and even played on her team during off-season exhibitions and if there's one thing I know it's that she demands absolute perfection. That's why she kicked out Aida after last years flag fumble in the semi-final."_

Shinji watched as a clip of an armored man wearing glasses received a headshot five feet away from depositing the flag on his back into place for the capture. The flag fell to the ground and a member of the opposing team ran through it, causing it to return to its original place of resting.

_"With the new season starting up soon, she got the empty slot filled damn fast," _Malcolm said.

The screen switched to show a sleek looking female Liandri-made synthetic wielding a ripjack. It was soft purple in color and moved gracefully in a series of high leaps and executing precision shots from mid-air somersaults.

_"Her name is Casper," _said the robot announcer, _"And she is the next evolution in Liandri robotics. With three times the reflexes of a normal human and physical prowess of a Juggernaut, she is the very embodiment of the fighting spirit. One of a trio of synthetics which are all undoubtedly faster, stronger, and better than their predecessors."_

"Wow," Storm muttered.

Shinji spun away from the screen and back to his console with the intention of resuming his daily tasks.

"Hey Captain, what do you make of that?" Storm asked, having not been oblivious to Shinji watching the vid screen.

As much as he hated to admit it, Shinji actually was interested in what Casper could actually do in a competitive match. Having been a regular competitor from eighteen to twenty two, he couldn't help but wonder. But what he had really gotten out of that segment wasn't that Angel's of Darkness had a new android, but that Asuka was in charge of it. At the time of his departure, Shinji was sure that the team would crumble without him as its leader. He hadn't thought that because he particularly _wanted_ it to crumble, but more out of what he had held as common sense. That it was still fighting and winning with Asuka as its leader was something that had Malcolm not just said it he would have considered loony.

But he couldn't tell Storm all that.

"I don't make anything of it to tell you the truth, Storm," Shinji replied.

In fact, why hadn't Storm ever mentioned that the team was still going on? He'd watched the recent Tournament, no doubt, so why didn't he mention it? On the contrary, all of his questions to date had revolved around Shinji's past in the Tournament. But maybe it was because the young man didn't want to make his boss, the man who paid and housed him, angrier then need be.

_"And now the moment you've all been waiting for," _the robot on screen said, before allowing Malcolm to take up the announcement.

_"Heavy Hitters versus Angels of Darkness. Let's rock!"_

Shinji stood up out of his seat and headed for the bridge's exit, not wanting to see the blood sport about to be played out on screen.

"You aren't gonna watch it, Captain?" Storm asked.

"Nah, I think I'll go check the cargo bay," Shinji answered and walked out of the door.

He marched down the hallway toward the cargo bay with his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his blue jacket. On his way he passed the restrooms, the waste storage, janitorial closet and then the cafeteria. Five feet past the last room, he stopped. The cafeteria had a vid screen, the only other one on the ship…

"No," he stated firmly to himself.

But just as he said the commanding word, he knew he didn't mean it. Angels of Darkness had to have changed drastically, as did their now-leader Asuka. Reluctantly, Shinji turned around and walked into the cafeteria, took a seat at one of two tables in it and turned on the vid screen. It was already on the channel and Shinji immediately saw that the unofficial ritual of pre-game taunting was beginning. Unlike the televised wrestling matches of hundreds of years ago, these taunts were not scripted and came directly from the dark depths of each team captain's heart. First he saw the Heavy Hitters step up onto stage, their team captain simply massive in his armor. Then the Angels stepped up, Asuka tiny and petite compared to her opposite, yet with a look just as determinedly pissed.

No matter how long he had been away from the sport, he simply had to watch this.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I guess it's about time I gave some thoughts on this and explained just what the hell I'm doing with everyone's favorite pilots. I'm trying to write a fic based around the morals of Unreal Tournament's story, and doing it from the perspective of the most emotionally diverse characters ever concieved probably makes it more interesting. Aside from who you've seen thus far, other characters from the show are going to appear. Namely Misato, Gendo, Yui and Kensuke. Also, if you read it please give me a little review. Just a couple of sentences so I know your thoughts, good, bad or ugly. Thanks, now on with the headshots!

**UT Evangelion**

**Chapter 2: Let There Be More Light**

Asuka Soryu, age 30, stood three feet away from Savage, the captain of Heavy Hitters. From this distance she could see every dent, scrape mark and bullet impact point on his gray armor, purposefully left there to give his attire a rough, worn-in look. If this were to impress the fans or intimidate his enemy's, Asuka wasn't sure. However, if she had to guess it would be the second. Juggernauts weren't exactly known for their willingness to play in the Tournament and were usually only there because the Liandri corporation had a deal with them: play in the Tournament for x amount of years and receive a get out of jail free card.

Asuka's armor, like the rest of her team's, was smooth and without any of the superficial damage of Savage's. The need to please fans wasn't lost on them at all. Asuka, for one, had her taunt stomach, lower back and shapely legs out in the air, uncovered and unhindered by heavy armor. Her breasts were covered with a mockery of swimming attire and her private region was covered in the same fashion. The 'straps' of the upper piece of her armored 'bikini' connected to a hump of armor on her upper back that covered the back of her head from injury and contained the personnel portion of the respawning device. Other than that she wore armored gloves that extended back to her mid-forearm and knee high boots to keep snow out in case of an arctic arena.

Needless to say, sales of Asuka posters to teenage boys were raking in quite a bit of cash.

"Hey Savage. Have you been on a diet?" she asked.

"No," the stupid Juggernaut replied, "Why?"

"Didn't think so," she said offhandedly.

The crowd sitting around them in the stadium cheered. In all honestly, she expected this to be a pretty one-sided trash talking session. Savage just wasn't cut out for going head to head with her conversational intellect.

"See you brought your new android with you," Savage sneered, gesturing to Casper where she stood behind Asuka, "What's the deal? You need to hide behind a robot's skirts?"

Everyone in the audience wearing a Heavy Hitters T-shirt went wild as a side effect of their favorite player's successful insult, which could be considered a rarity at best.

"Yup, I need to hide behind Casper's skirts," Asuka said, calming the audience, "As it'll just help me snipe you with all the ease of squishing an annoying housefly."

The crowd went crackers, cheering and throwing popcorn into the air.

"You're a bitch," he growled.

"See, judging by how my team destroyed your team last time we met, I had you pegged as the bitch," Asuka smarted.

Savage growled and clenched one of his fists.

"Oh, better save that anger for the match, Savage," Asuka warned mockingly, "You're gonna need it."

"I'll crush you," he threatened.

"Whatever," Asuka said and left the stage, winking at a hovering camera on her way off.

She walked down a secondary ramp through the infield of the stadium, where below her over a thousand clamoring fans reached up and called praise for the media-made demi-gods on stage. At the end of this ramp was another stage, small enough for just one team to stand on. In its center was a smooth silver steel podium and atop it, one big red button. Since Angels of Darkness had won the last match between themselves and Heavy Hitters, it was their right to choose this match's arena. With the rest of her team behind her, Asuka stepped up to the podium and rested both of her gauntlet-covered hands on the button, not pressing it but keeping it in her grasp.

Across the stadium from her, Savage and the other three members of Heavy Hitters stepped onto their own platform, minus the podium. Savage himself was walking back and forth, shouting at his team. From where she was, Asuka couldn't hear it but could still guess that it had something to do with the status of her in-match head and what should happen to it. Just then, several large screens around the stadium turned on. On them was a picture of one arena, which Asuka recognized as the Dingo Flats; a nasty dirt covered arena on the ass end of nowhere.

She didn't click the button and the picture changed to another arena, and then it changed again. Soon the pictures where flashing into and out of existence faster than any normal human brain could decipher the information it was being given. Obviously, being in the Tournament since she was eighteen had made Asuka's brain quicker than any normal human. In fact, machine testing had revealed that when put under sufficient stress, such as that which occurs in every match, her brain functioned just as fast as a modern grade Liandri combat droid. Well, maybe with Casper as an exception.

Abruptly, Asuka pushed in on the selection button. The screen automatically froze on an image of steel corridors and metal ramps with no railings. With her mouth twisted into a wry smirk, she turned to the nearest camera and raised her eyebrows in mock innocence.

"Cold Chambers. That's an interesting choice. Malcolm?" asked the robotic announcer.

"Makes sense. Its fairly narrow in some spots, it'll make it hard for the Heavy Hitters to maneuver without bumping into each other. Basically, with this choice Asuka has given herself a tactical advantage, just like she should," Malcolm explained.

"Truly a legendary captain," added his synthetic friend.

"Now let's not jump the gun on that," Malcolm started, but was cut off as the live feed switched back to the staging area.

Each team's individual platform lit up from within and a droning hum pervaded the audience. Asuka could feel her hair standing up as static electricity gathered around the platform. There was a loud crack and a flash, then both teams were gone. The teleportation of both teams sent them across the galaxy in an instant, reducing their bodies to mere bits of energy and then materializing them on scene in the barren cryogenic research station known as Cold Chambers. Aside from hosting Tournament matches every so often, the deep space relic didn't do much besides circulate air throughout itself and keep its nuclear reactor running. Overall not a terribly demanding existence.

After spawning into the area, Asuka stood patiently still in anticipation of the ritualistic signal to begin the slaughter fest. Soon enough, it arrived.

"TEAM DEATHMATCH!"

Instantly, the Angels were afoot. With Asuka just behind Toji in their line that ran at full speed through the corridors of the arena. Asuka ran through the pickup spot for a flak cannon and the weapon was automatically spawned into her right hand. No sooner had the flakes of the spawning wore off then one of Savage's goons burst into the corridor holding a ripjack in one hand. Toji whirled around, his newly equipped link gun in hand, and fired a blast. The Juggernaut took the hit in the stomach, winced a bit but was still able to fire his ripjack. The high speed spinning saw blade sliced through Toji's leg armor and ripped his right leg off from the knee down. He fell into the second shot, which severed his head from his neck and sent him falling over backwards, dead. Just as the respawning device dematerialized his dead body, the announcer cut in.

"FIRST BLOOD!"

Asuka fired off two quick primary fire shots with her flak cannon in the direction of Toji's killer. The first blast missed and its projectile cluster rebounded off of a wall behind the Juggernaut. One of those yellow-hot projectiles hit the big armored man in the ankle, blasting out the joint. In pain, the Juggernaut groaned out loudly. That was until Asuka's second blast blew him apart. Fleshy blood covered chunks of muscle tissue splattered across the floor, walls and ceiling of the chamber. Another Juggernaut jumped into the area from an opening above the corridor, a shock rifle clutched in his grip. Asuka pivoted around and fired her flak cannon one handed. The blast blew the second Juggernaut apart just as effectively as its predecessor had the previous one and another coat of red was applied to the corridor.

"DOUBLE KILL!"

Toji ran up to them, respawned anew and with a link gun in his hands.

"Sorry about that," he said.

"Whatever," she replied, "You stick with Rei, freeform patrol. Casper, with me."

"Roger," the female android replied, hefting her rocket launcher with one hand.

With that the two halves of the team split up, electing to double-team any opposition. This was a standard small arena deathmatch tactic straight out of the Angels of Darkness play book. That play book, more or less, was still dominated by tactics out of the mind of Shinji Ikari, despite his eight-year absence. Though she would never admit it to anyone, Asuka rarely ever thought outside of the metaphorical box. Together, Asuka and Casper burst through a doorway and into the largest room in Cold Chambers. Situated at the center of the arena, it had six entrances. Three of them were located around the bottom level and the other three around the top ramp that ran all the way around the room.

"Kill them!" boomed a voice.

Looking up, Asuka saw Savage aiming a stinger minigun down at her. She flinched as a barrage of bullets from the weapon ripped into her chest, splitting open her lungs and causing her heart to burst. With blood spurting weakly out of the holes, she fell backward toward the ground. Just before her back touched, however, she respawned. Now standing up once more, Asuka ran through a hologram of a bio rifle. The bulky bulbous weapon appeared in her grasp just as she stepped onto a lift. The lift moved upward quickly, bringing her into a corridor that led to the upper center deck of the arena. She ran down it while a large green glob of explosive material gathered at the front of her bio rifle.

Before her, with his back turned, was Savage. He stood in exactly the same spot as he had been before, shooting down at Casper. The android was dancing back and forth, dodging the Juggernaut team leader's horrible aim when Asuka released her weapon's payload. A twelve-pound glob of green ooze impacted Savage's back and wrapped around his chest, embracing him in a lethal hug. The large man spun around and looked at his killer, who blew him a kiss, just before exploding into bits of bloody meat. Without its owner there to hold it, the stinger minigun clattered to the floor. Asuka picked it up, her bio rifle teleported out of the map until she called for it again.

Below where she stood, she could see Casper jump sideways through the air, evading a shock rifle core with feet to spare. The high-tech android landed on the fingers of her left hand and balanced herself perfectly upside down, taking careful aim at her attacker with her rocket launcher. She fired one rocket, which flashed across the distance between herself and the target in no time at all. It hit him in the waist and blew him in half, his upper body smashing against a wall while his lower body was reduced to goo.

Just then, Toji and Rei ran into the lower area, he with his link gun and she with a sniper rifle. Toji squeezed his secondary fire and a beam lanced out of his weapon and touched a Juggernaut. He held it there for a few seconds before the Juggernaut's armor, flesh and muscle was burned off, leaving behind a bleached white skeleton.

"Ha, ha! Bring it!" he taunted.

A shock rifle bolt hit him in the head, blowing it off and sending his body across the area. Rei responded by firing a round out of her sniper rifle in the attacker's general direction.

"Rei!" Asuka shouted, kneeling down and reaching toward Rei with her left hand, "Get up here!"

Rei turned and jumped up, reaching for Asuka's hand. Glove touched glove and Asuka clamped down on her teammate's hand. She started pulling her up the ledge. From the right, Asuka heard the sound of a ripjack blade slicing through the air. The jagged-edged piece of circular metal cut through her arm at the elbow, severing it and sending Rei falling back down to the floor. The blue haired sniper landed on her back, and looked up just in time to see Savage's boot come down and crush her skull. Up above, Asuka screamed as she spun around and fired the stinger minigun at the ripjacker with her one remaining hand. Bullet's tore into him and pushed him back through a doorway, bleeding profusely. He fell to the ground and shimmered green as the respawner kicked into action.

"Take it!" she shouted, spit flying out of her mouth and onto the metal grating below her boots.

Below her, Savage fired off a rocket aimed in her direction. Halfway there, a shock rifle bolt impacted it and it detonated in mid-air. Angry, Savage followed the trajectory of the bolt to find Casper aiming at him. The android fired a shock core next to him and chased it down with a shock bolt. The two combined and created a large dark matter orb, which collapsed upon itself and pulled a screaming Savage in with it. Casper turned toward the nearest floating camera and smiled in accordance with her programming.

"Liandri brings you tomorrow, today," she said punctually.

Up above, Asuka was venting blood out of her ruined arm like a busted fire hydrant. Shouting in a mixture of pain and anger, she held down the trigger on her minigun. Another one of the Heavy Hitters fell under her barrage, but not before he lobbed a bio rifle glob towards her. The superheated glob hit her directly in the face and latched on, not letting go for anything. Its heat melted her eyes, causing her once-warrior like scream to take on a quality reminiscent of panic. She dropped her minigun and clawed at the glob, trying desperately to remove it even though she knew it wouldn't come off. Then it detonated, and she stopped screaming.

Asuka respawned with an Enforcer pistol in her hand. Up in front of her she caught the tail end of Rei as the mainstream sniper disappeared around a corner. She set off again in the direction of the middle, picking up a link gun along the way.

Casper jumped off of a wall and toward a Juggernaut. Although her light colored body didn't show it, she weighed upwards of a ton in heavy durable metal and processing crystal. Needless to say, even this opponent faltered under the impact. The two sprawled to the ground, punching and kicking. The Juggernaut ended up on top of Casper, but not for long. Using her robotic strength and flexibility, she wrapped a leg around her enemy's back and pulled in toward her. Vertebrae snapped and the Juggernaut let out a groan before dying.

"There's the bot!" shouted another Juggernaut to his teammate as the two entered the hallway.

Casper rotated her foot around 180 degrees and used it as a hook to throw the dead weight atop her to the side, where it disappeared for respawning. She dodged a ripjack blade and spun up to her feet, materializing her shock rifle in hand at the same time. Another blade spun toward her head. She ducked down and to the left, evading the blade before putting a shock bolt into the shooter's forehead with a kind of precision only a robot could muster.

"DOUBLE KILL!"

The second Juggernaut bounded toward her and fired his flak cannon. Casper jumped over both the blast and the man who fired it, spinning around in mid air and coming back down with the Juggernaut's back clearly in her line of fire. She aimed and squeezed the secondary fire trigger on her shock rifle, sending a purple orb into her opponent's back. The Juggernaut let out a pained cry and whirled on her, bringing his flak cannon to bare again. This time she took no chances, putting two more primary fire bolts into the target's chest.

"MULTI-KILL!"

Casper took three long strides down the hallway and entered the Heavy Hitter's respawning area. Her first two victims were already back from the dead, each holding Enforcer pistols in their oversized steroid-produced hands. In unison, they saw her and fired their starting weapons in burst mode. The collective six rounds were sidestepped with ease, leaving Casper to fire a shock core in between the two Juggernauts. She then shot it with a normal shock bolt, morphing it into a massive dark matter hole that sucked in the two bulky competitors without a problem before exploding.

"MEGA KILL!"

"ULTRA KILL!"

Then her third original victim reappeared before her. Three shock bolts entered his brain before the residual green light from the respawner had worn off.

"MONSTER KILL! ONE KILL REMAINING!"

Asuka burst into the center room with an Enforcer in each hand. Rei was beside her with the sniper rifle she almost always possessed in firing position. On the other side of the room, Savage entered with a rocket launcher pointed in their direction.

"Rei, you distract him and I'll flank left," Asuka said.

"Yes," Rei replied.

The sniper fired one round toward the Juggernaut's head. Savage threw himself to the side, evading the shot and fired a rocket at Rei. Still reloading, Rei ducked just far enough for the rocket to lash over her hair, close enough to make a few blue strands blow about in reaction to its passing. Rei finished putting another heavy caliber round into the chamber and fired from the hip. The bullet smashed into the ground below Savage, breaking it apart and sending fragments up into collision with his knee guard. This went unnoticed to the massive man as he calmly used his launcher's secondary fire to prepare three rockets at once. Knowing she couldn't dodge those homing shots in such close quarters; Rei simply reloaded her weapon.

The bolt locked into place just as the trio of explosives came hurtling for her position. Rei fired and hit the center rocket in mid-air. The other two, however, hit her in the gut and blew her apart. Savage began to laugh as his rocket launcher smoked in silence. Suddenly, Asuka appeared upside down before him, her feet locked in between to coolant pipes on the low ceiling. A barrage of six Enforcer pistol rounds smashed into his face, burying themselves and spurting blood out in their wakes. He remained standing, however, until Asuka jumped down from her position and kicked him in the chest. Savage slammed onto his back and weakly looked up as the red head fired a final bullet into his forehead.

"GAME OVER!"


	4. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **So, with this one we get closer and closer to the main point of this story: Shinji's return to the Tournament. We also delve more into the little things that will set the story up to be more than a bunch of repetitive violence, which is something that no one wants to see. Now on with the fun!

**UT Evangelion**

**Chapter 3: Remember a Day**

Shinji, had the bench he was sitting on in the cafeteria had a back, would have leaned back in surprise at how efficiently Asuka had defeated her opponents. Thankfully, he was mindful of the fact that the bench did not possess a back and did not end up on the floor, instead remaining surprised in a rigidly upright position. On the vid screen, both teams had been teleported back to the Liandri Stadium onto their respective platforms. Floating cameras had instantly descended upon them, circling and streaming video to vid screens around the galaxy.

Asuka reached into the air with both arms, raising applause out of spectators seated in the stadium's 200,000 seats and standing in the infield crowded around the stage. Savage stepped down off of his own team's platform and thundered across the stage directly toward Asuka.

"You skinny little-" he began, pointing at her with a meaty index finger.

Casper stepped around Asuka and grabbed his finger with both hands and yanked him sideways off of his path of travel and into the audience, who automatically clamored for his autograph. The vid screen pulled in on Asuka, showing the large smirk on her face.

"Enjoy the fans, Savage?" she asked.

The Juggernaut tried to respond but was drown out by the wave of people mobbing him. Shouting, he punched one fan in the face.

"Get off me!" he shouted.

They ignored him and continued to pull at his armor, wanting to take a piece of the heavy reinforced steel with them as a souvenir. One fan used his legs to brace himself as he pulled a shoulder guard off. The sudden release drove him back onto his rear, where he had a second to savor his find before more people began to mob him for the shoulder guard. Up above them, Asuka laughed and walked with the rest of the Angels off the stage toward the locker rooms, intent upon getting some of the dried blood off of her skin.

Shinji turned off the vid screen, got up out of his seat and headed out of the cafeteria. After watching that match, he had come to the conclusion that Casper was the main combat powerhouse behind the Angels of Darkness. With the knowledge that she was a Liandri android, Shinji wasn't surprised that she could move that fast and be that deadly. But still, some of the ways she had found enemies made him wonder if maybe there was a bit of unfair competition going on within his old team. Then there was Asuka. She looked just as good as she had all those years ago and her leadership abilities had no doubt improved since then. However, she still didn't seem to be effective enough to lead a team to the championship like she had apparently done for the past few years in a row.

Shinji shook his head at the thoughts. He told himself he didn't care; it wasn't his place to care about Tournament affairs. He wasn't a combatant anymore and didn't have any desire to. After seeing how the fans had treated Savage his position on the sport being grotesque and wrong had in no way softened. However, at the back of his mind, a small dark part of him said something completely different. As Shinji entered the bridge again, he did his best to push it away and succeeded.

For the moment.

--

Asuka stepped into the locker room and immediately began pulling off her armor, first the boots, then the gauntlets and finally the upper body armor. Normally she wouldn't have stripped out of her armor this fast in the past. But since one of the team members was sleeping with her, another was a fellow woman, and the third was an android headed for the service booth at the rear of the locker room, she didn't mind so much. As she stuck her armor pieces in a special cleaning locker next to the one holding her clothes, she watched Casper enter the booth.

It wasn't so much a booth as a massive walk in closet filled to the brim with Liandri scientists, all scurrying around in white lab coats and carrying holographic clipboards to keep tabs on Casper's 'vitals'. After pulling on a red tank top and jeans, Asuka wrapped a towel around her sweaty neck and headed over to the booth. She peered in the bulletproof window and watched as Casper sat down gracefully on a metal chair. Mechanical automated arms swung around on pivot joints attached to the ceiling, attaching electronic hoses and bundles of wires into ports all through her armor.

A scientist walked around her, checking each port and making sure everything was connected properly, not that they didn't trust the three supercomputers responsible for Casper's maintenance, but that it was always better to be sure than sorry in the case of a multi-billion dollar piece of precision machinery. Unlike the public was led to believe, Casper was not a simple modified XO8000 series residential service android, but was in fact a carefully disguised and finely tuned weapon created specifically for winning Tournament matches.

And win she did. Casper's rudimentary onboard CPU in actuality had little to do with her overall decision making process in a combat situation. Instead, each and every one of her reactions, ranging from a weapon change to a taunt to a particular shot taken was carefully measured and predicted using the tri-computer complex set up back in the head Liandri corporation offices. This in itself totally violated the company's own rulebook, specifically the rule regarding outside computational assistance. On that subject, the rules were quite strict on it, saying that any team using such methods on its androids or any other aspect of play was punished by banishment from the Tournament for life.

But, since Liandri wrote the rules, it could also break them at will. Thus, Casper existed. Asuka knew all about the 'Casper situation' and also realized that if it were exposed, she would take the fall, not Liandri. Thankfully, the New Earth Government congress was much to wrapped up in treaty negotiations between the Axon and Izanagi Corporations. It had no time to bust the popular spectator sport for the equivalent of what steroid abuse was before it was deemed legal in 2067, shortly after the demise of baseball.

As much as she hated having an unfair advantage, she wasn't all that angry about it. For one thing, she had to do it. She owed the Liandri higher-ups for helping her eight years ago, and with the Tournament starting back up in a week and a half, she needed all the help she could get. So far, everything had fallen into place and all she had to do was bear Casper being on the team for one season and pretend she liked it. Besides, she was starting to come around to the android being able to practically sense what was coming in a fight. So maybe it wasn't all bad.

With that, Asuka met up with Toji and left the locker room for the post-game press conference.

--

"Here you go sir," said the bookstore's cashier, handing Storm a bag full of dusty paperbacks.

"Thanks," he replied absently and turned to leave.

He pushed his way out of the store and into the grand walkway that ran across the upper floor of the Sky Mall, the planet Posid's only real remarkable achievement. It had been three days since the Angels of Darkness pre-season match against the Heavy Hitters, and the _Spiteful Unrest's _two-man crew had finally delivered its cargo to the dock in orbit around the planet they were now a mile above. The Sky Mall was constructed on massive pillars and was roughly the size of the region on Earth called Connecticut. It contained every modern item not essential to survival. In short: if you didn't find something you liked, you either weren't looking at all or were completely lost.

Across from the bookstore was a clothing store. Within it, Storm saw Shinji poking around through the racks of clothing; his hands in his jacket pockets and his sunglasses on to avoid being noticed for who he was. Stepping quickly through the crowd, Storm entered the store and stopped next to Shinji.

"See anything interesting, Captain?" he asked.

"Nah," Shinji replied, "Just poking around a bit. What'd you get?"

Storm ran through the contents of his blue plastic bag. "3 Dickinson, 2 King, 4 Poe and 2 Axler," he said.

Shinji only nodded, eyeing an expensive suit through his mirrored sunglasses.

"You liking that suit, sir?" Storm asked.

"No, not really," Shinji lied.

Normally, he would have been telling the truth. But recently his mind had been slowly formulating a plan and had only been kicked into overdrive by the conversation he had had with an old friend the night before over subspace radio…

--

Shinji sat in the radio room on _Spiteful Unrest, _tapping his finger idly on his knee as he waited for the call to go through. Speaking all the way to Earth from warp space wasn't a cheap thing to do, but he had some questions he wanted answered. And he could only think of one person who knew the answers to these questions. Someone on the inside, and someone who was hopefully awake at this hour.

"_Hello?" _a groggy female voice answered on the other end.

"Is this Misato Katsuragi?" he asked.

_"Yeah, and who the hell are you? If you're one of Kaji's friends you can tell that low life mother-"_

"Misato, its Shinji," he cut her off.

_"Shinji!?"_ she asked, unbelieving.

"Yeah, it's me," he reiterated.

For the next minute and a half, Shinji held the receiver away from his ear as she screamed in surprise. Throughout the screaming there was the sound of vague words placed somewhere between 'oh my God its good to hear from you' and 'why the hell didn't you ever call to talk to me you asshole?' After a bit, she wore off completely into the second camp.

_"Why are you calling me? Last I heard you were running a cargo ship out on the ass-end of nowhere,"_ she said.

"Yeah, that is what I've been doing. But now I'm wondering what's up with you. Did you stay on managing the Angels after I left?" he asked.

_"Up until last season, yes,"_ Misato replied.

"What happened?" Shinji asked.

_"Asuka fired me,"_ Misato explained, then added, _"Fucking bitch."_

"Drinking on the job?" he teased, not able to resist the thought that had immediately crept into his mind.

_"Wha-? Hell no!"_ she shouted, _"If I weren't so happy to be talking to you, I'd of hung up at that."_

"I'm sorry," he said.

_"You're damn right you're sorry,"_ she muttered.

"So, why did she fire you?" Shinji asked.

_"Did you hear about Aida?"_ Misato asked.

"Sure. My replacement or whatever," Shinji said.

_"Hon, Toji's your replacement, not Aida. Anyway, Aida got kicked out for that new android. Screwing up a flag capture is no reason for someone to be let go, not even by Asuka. The Angels are a pawn of Liandri, plain and simple. They needed a slot on the team for Casper, so they kicked out Aida. Toji was safe due to his relationship with Asuka, and Rei'd been there since the beginning, so they couldn't very well kick her out,"_ she explained.

"Thus, Aida got the short straw," Shinji muttered.

_"Exactly. I figured out what they were doing and bam, got the boot myself,"_ Misato said.

"You think they're cheating?" Shinji asked.

_"Shinji, I've been in the managing business for a long time. I know instinctively when a team is cheating and I especially know that when Liandri is involved they're either assisting in it or they're directly behind it, pulling the strings,"_ she said, _"In this case, Casper is the most unfair competitor ever to come out of a multi-billion dollar assembly line."_

"Asuka would never do that. She's to full of pride to have a cheater on her team," Shinji protested.

_"I don't think she has a choice,"_ Misato said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

_"I'm not sure, but I do agree that normally she wouldn't allow a cheater on her team. Thing is, whatever is going on can be squarely placed on her shoulders. Liandri always covers their bases, and this is totally illegal. So if someone were to catch onto it-"_

"Then Asuka would take the fall," Shinji completed for her.

_"Exactly,"_ she said, then went silent for a minute.

"What?" Shinji asked, reading into the silence as Misato thinking about asking him something.

_"Well, me and a group of people are getting together to expose Asuka. We're starting a team and I was kind of wondering if you might be inclined to come out of retirement,"_ she explained.

Shinji thought for a second, looking straight ahead out of a window in the radio room. The stars beyond the foot-thick glass didn't twinkle and seemed to be staring right into his soul. Maybe he should go back, just to return some honesty to the sport. Finally, he kicked himself in the head for thinking like that. Killing was wrong, and he wouldn't go back and do it.

"Thanks for the offer, Misato. But I don't think so," he said.

Misato sighed. _"Oh well. It was worth a shot, but hey, if you ever change your mind you know where to find me,"_ she said.

"Yeah, nice talking to you Misato," he said.

_"Same here, Shinji. I miss you," _she said.

"Goodbye," he said and hung up the receiver…

--

"Whatever," Shinji said to Storm, "Let's get on out of here."

"Sure," Storm agreed.

"Wait," Shinji said, and they both stopped.

"What?" Storm asked.

"Did you get what I asked from the vid store?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah," Storm said, patting his jacket pocket, "I got it right here."

"Good," Shinji said.

The two men exited the clothing store and began walking back toward the shuttle bay for transport up to the space dock in orbit. When they were about halfway there, a deep voice rumbled across the walkway.

"Everyone get on the ground!"

Shinji and Storm both turned to see a Skaarj warrior standing in the middle of the walkway with an older model minigun in his hands. Like all Skaarj, this one was around eight feet tall; green skinned and with the build of a Juggernaut even without armor. The species was divided into tribes, and though Shinji wasn't by any means fluent in the tattoos that separated tribe from tribe, he did know that the symbol tattooed across this particular Skaarj's left breast was that of the Razzor Tribe. They were known for having one of the largest slaving empires in Skaarj history. Their leader, Razzor, was an outspoken anti-human activist and though this Skaarj definitely wasn't Razzor, Shinji was sure that he shared the leader's opinions.

"Storm, take cover," Shinji muttered.

Storm didn't ask questions and got down on the floor, one of the only people actually doing so,

"On the ground! All of you!" the alien barked again, "Unless you wish to try your luck. I encourage that."

Without any kind of warning, Shinji leapt toward the center of the walkway, behind a small steel bench. The Skaarj warrior opened fire with his minigun. The rounds pocket-marked the bench and in the thinner areas punched clear through to the other side. Shinji drew an Enforcer pistol he kept hidden in his jacket pocket and popped out from behind the bench. He fired three quick shots, missing the first two but scoring a hit on his opponent's arm with the third. Letting out a growl of pain, the alien squeezed his weapon's trigger again. Shinji ducked back into cover as the bullets raked past his position and into a group of people trying to get away. To an armored soldier or Tournament player, the bullets would have simply made neat holes and left the body largely intact. Unfortunately for these civilians, who had no armor, the results were much messier. Blood and chunks of organs exploded across the walkway and rained down on the glass display windows flanking the crowd.

Shinji looked away, not so much because he couldn't take the sight, but because he didn't feel like having blood in his eyes during a fight.

"Hey! Stop shooting and let the civilians go!" Shinji shouted.

The shooting suddenly stopped, soon followed by the screaming civilians who by now were on the ground either by choice or by death.

"Why?" asked the Skaarj, "I'm supposed to take them as slaves."

"So that we can have a fair fight!" Shinji shouted back.

"And why should I waste my time?"

Shinji thudded his head against the bench as he realized what he had to do.

"Because," he stammered reluctantly, "Because I'm Shinji Ikari!"

Storm, who was lying flat on his stomach, looked from Shinji to the Skaarj and back to Shinji as the big alien thought this over. Finally, the Skaarj made a decision.

"Weaklings: leave," he growled.

At once, Storm and the other civilians stood up and disappeared through the narrow pathways between stores. Storm, however, stopped and crouched behind a trashcan. He couldn't wait to see what was about to take place. Across the way from him, he could see someone else had the same idea, except they were filming it with a small home video camera.

"Your move," the Skaarj warrior growled, his minigun leveled toward Shinji's cover spot.

Shinji took three deep breaths as he prepared himself for what he was about to do. Abruptly, so that he wouldn't second-guess himself and not go through with it, he jumped out from behind cover and ran straight for the Skaarj, firing with his enforcer as he did so. Two shots smacked into the Skaarj's chest, knocking him back a bit, but not killing him. It did, however, through his aim off by six feet to the right. Minigun bullets smashed into glass display windows and shattered them, raining shards of the clear material down on the tile walkway below. Shinji got two more shots into the Skaarj's body before the minigun began moving toward him.

Thinking fast, Shinji shot open a store window to his left and dived through it. He landed on his shoulder painfully and slid into a poster rack, knocking it over and dropping rolled up pictures of Tournament players all over him. Bullets flashed over his head and blew apart shelves of useless junk. Then the sickening sound of a jam echoed across the area, followed by the Skaarj fighter cursing his weapon. Using the opportunity, Shinji jumped back out into the walkway, his Enforcer out in front of him and was instantly met by a punch to the ribs by his opponent. Without the added weight of armor, Shinji flew a good twenty feet before landing on his back with two cracked ribs.

He sat up on one elbow and aimed with his Enforcer, only to find that it wasn't in his hand anymore, but laying on the ground five feet to his right. The Skaarj marched forward, discarding his minigun to the side and instead baring the twin wrist blades on each arm that were the customary melee weapon of his race.

"The great Shinji Ikari's head," the Skaarj laughed, "Such a worthy prize."

Suddenly, another Enforcer slid across the floor and hit Shinji in the leg. Looking over to where it had come from, Shinji saw Storm giving him the 'thumbs up' sign. Nodding, Shinji grabbed the Enforcer and emptied its clip into the Skaarj's face. The alien stumbled backward and fell through a glass railing, breaking it and plummeting to the floor below the one they were on. Storm walked out from his hiding place and helped Shinji up off of the floor. Together, they stepped over to the destroyed railing and looked down at where the Skaarj had crushed a round rest table and was now lying surrounded by green blood.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Shinji said, handing the Enforcer back to Storm.

"I'm with you on that, sir," Storm agreed.

Shinji stopped to pick up his own lost weapon and walked with Storm down the empty walkway towards the shuttle bay. Now that they were gone, the man with the video camera stepped out into the open and got a shot of the dead alien before pocketing the camera and heading away from the battle site, intending to sell it to a news station.

--

Later that night, _Spiteful Unrest _was back in warp space. Shinji was sitting in his cabin, wrapping a towel around his ribs tight enough to keep them from moving to much. As he did this, he thought about how easy it was for him to go through with killing that Skaarj earlier. Granted, it was kill or be killed, but still, he hadn't even hesitated. And that brought his thoughts back to what Misato had said last night about starting a team to expose Asuka and why he had declined. The reason had been because he had been weary about killing people again, not because he thought that cheating was right. But after today's events, he was sure he could do it.

Standing, he left his quarters and headed down the hall. He entered the subspace radio room and eased into the operator's chair. He turned on the equipment and held the receiver to his ear, punching in Misato's number with the other. It rang a few times before she picked up.

_"Hello?" _she asked.

"Misato, when does the regular Tournament start?" he asked.

_"Next week. Why?"_

"That offer for me being on your team still open?"

_"Yeah."_

"Good. I'm headed to Earth right now. Where do we meet you?" he asked.

_"Who the hell is 'we'?" _she asked.

"Me, and my first mate."


End file.
